You have to remember to look at things on first impact, for you personally and the time period. Most "best of" (which, sorry, Most Scariest, is a best of) is going to look more for "at the time" and simply impact. I'm surprised, honestly, that no popular media list has what all us horror flick aficionados know to be some of the scariest movies to date, for time and impact. Those being:
Phantom of the Opera (the classic silent 1925 film with Lon Chaney, Sr.), which got boycotted and had audience members literally rampaging out of the ailes, fainting, and vomiting.
and
Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens/Nosferatu, a Symphony of Horror (The classic, again silent, Max Schreck 1921/22 film) which, if it wasn't for the lawsuit issues with the Stolker family, would be the classic Dracula movie.
But for me, personally, 1980's Cannibal Holocaust. I rate fear not just in jumps or disturbing images, but also how you feel days after. I watched this movie, and for years swore everything was real. Ends up just the animal slaughtering, but still. If it wasn't for this movie, I'd have no interest in movie/media censorship, whats-so-ever, or rather at least so little interest it might have been nothing. The movie changed my life. That and it's banned in 50 countries, and not all the bans are because of the violence, gore, alleged snuff film qualities, and a half dozen animal deaths. The Italian government even got involved, the local magistrate doing an investigation - blah blah blah (no really, look it up yourselves it's very interesting). That, really, is fear.
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Oh... and people laughing at Jaws... just compare how many people were suddenly afraid of the devil again and got huge phobias about it - when Exorcist came out - compared to how many people WON'T EVER go in the water EVER again, even nowadays, from that movie. It deserves to be in the top 5.
